Saturday, September 10, 2011

Fear infects...

And birds of the same feather flock together.

Ref: Here. I mentioned the Stockholm syndrome. Don't you think it's interesting that the abused got to form such firm bonds with the abuser? Intense fear. And if you are then lead to believe that your well being is in their hands then the illusion is complete. You cannot now see that their real intention is to do you harm.

Have you noticed that in any competition, the ones who have checked out will want others to accompany them? Not only have they quit but they need others to quit too in order to feel "good" about themselves.

And so evolves a system of intimidation, of twisting the facts and outright lies, of poison in the guise of help.

But fear is the enemy of reason. And chess is the ultimate game of reasoning. One skill that is very important in chess is to be able to let go of fear quickly. Have you noticed that if you lose concentration or become negative for even one move in a high level game, it can infect the next move? One bad decision becomes a series of bad decisions. You lose objectivity and your mind starts to spiral.

This has nothing to do with the technical knowledge you possess. Fear has now made it inaccessible.

Now in this quiet moment, go back and visit Jimmy's site. Do you see what he and his friends are doing? Can you believe their claims that they love chess and want to develop others?

Now is it clearer why they needed to attack Zhuo Ren, Sumant and Mark? If they too become infected by this fear can they now progress? Can you now see why Peter talks about Mas's "woeful lack of confidence"? Why he says we have messy minds and are lowly?

Zhuo Ren, Sumant, Mark, Mas, Yee Weng are our fighters. They have taken up the challenge and are still going for it.

They cannot accept the poison of fear or they will soon become part of that flock. What is important for them is to learn how to protect their minds from this type of attacks since it cannot be stopped by us. What they need is a strong support system to sustain them in the fire of intense competition. Then they can become diamonds. What they need is to strengthen their fighting spirit and not the injection of more fear.

The poison can come in the form of a rescue. Don't be fooled. It's just a mind trick. Now do you see how that glass ceiling is created?